Death and Biker Gangs (9 page)

Oh, if only I knew.

***

It only took about three blocks to figure out General Hammond and his men hadn’t come through here much after the initial evacuation.

It was just as well we were on foot; even if the bike had worked, it would have had trouble picking through all the debris scattered across the road. We passed cars, trucks, and everything in between, all of them in varying states of repair. Some looked intact underneath layers of still-damp, congealed ash, but others had smashed into houses, roadblocks, or other vehicles.

They faced every which way, some with doors flung open, others with hoods popped. Tony paused next to a big SUV that seemed relatively untouched. “Now what happened here?”

“Panic?” I suggested.

Something thumped around inside the SUV. I turned to stare at the window, but it was coated in a fine layer of ash, concealing anything inside. I pulled my jacket sleeve over my hand and reached out.

“Vibeke,” Dax muttered, “don’t…”

Hey, I used to be a reporter. I was supposed to go digging for the real story. I wiped away some of the ash.

The ghoul slammed against the window, its jaw hanging from the left hinge. I couldn’t even tell whether it had been male or female; the short, stringy blond hair could’ve belonged to anyone.

It threw itself against the window again.

I wish I could say I felt some sort of empathy, or that the sight of it made me ponder the deeper questions in life, but all I could wonder was whether its jaw had been ripped off before it died, or whether it had jarred loose during decay. It’s the important things, you know?

“Moving on,” Dax said. “
Now
, please.”

We edged ahead, easing between car doors. After five minutes, we came to a complete stop, the way blocked by what must have been tons of abandoned belongings. “Not sure about this,” Tony said.

When people fled, they brought all kinds of stuff with them. When they realized they couldn’t carry the stuff or were simply banned from bringing it with them, apparently they’d just dropped it and moved on, leaving it behind as they ran ahead into darkness. All of it had stayed where it fell. 

I pictured Hammond and his men standing there at the roadblock, ordering people to bring only food and warm clothing and themselves, forcing them to drop the heirlooms, the cutlery, and the portable televisions.

I caught sight of a mangled-looking pile of fur, and quickly looked away. We had a few pets in the camp: a handful of dogs and cats, and one very irate parakeet that I suspected would outlive us all.

Still, I had expected a greater animal to human ratio. Millions of people had pets; how was it that only a few had been brought along? 

It wasn’t for lack of effort. Hammond, that hardened military man, had flung open the doors to pets and livestock. 
They’re someone’s family, 
he said whenever someone’s beloved critter turned up. 

I think some people just left them behind. How many more were still in houses? How many had waited for their owners to come back?

Our own pet yipped nervously, pacing back and forth. I kept a tight grip on her leash, fearful she might dart off into the gloom.

We edged forward another half-block before Tony stopped us. “We might as well see if we can scavenge anything.”

A sea of human cast-offs crowded the street in front of us. Suitcases and other luggage clogged our path, and stray pieces of clothing—jackets, shoes, a ridiculous amount of socks—were strewn everywhere. A box sat off to the side, and I steeled myself before taking a look. Dust-covered video games, family photograph albums, and a handful of horror novels sat inside.

I reached in and picked up the top book, one with a grinning, malevolent-looking skull on the cover. “
Beach Getaway of the Dead
,” I read aloud. I turned it over to read the back cover copy. “They came for the sunshine. They stayed…for the flesh!”

The boys stood there, possibly trying to decide if I had made the title up. 

Dax peered into the box, and his eyes lit up with rather unholy glee. “Oh my God, the owner was a zombie fan. Look at this. 
Farm of the Dead, The Dead Machine
…” Dax began pulling out other titles. Most of them looked well-worn, as if they’d been read many times. “
Subway of the Dead
, 
Cab Ride of the Dead, Dead Mennonite Walking
…”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that one.” Tony casually plucked the book out of Dax’s hands. “Ezekiel Amman and a washed-up action star team up to take on the living dead. In Amish Country.”

For a moment, the only sound was the dog’s panting.

“Amish zombies,” Dax mused. “I never thought of that. Wait, are Mennonites actually Amish?”

“No. They’re different groups.” I only knew that because I’d once interviewed a drummer who had discovered punk rock while on 
rumspringa
.

“Yeah, well, most of the country doesn’t realize that.” Tony flipped through the book. “It’s a sequel. In the first book, 
Mennonite Man
, Ezekiel is killed off, but is resurrected before he can zombify.” He tapped the cover. “Hence the title. He’s chosen by God to fight off the outbreak.”

Dax seemed to perk up at that. “So he’s like the Boondock Saints?”

“Sort-of. He has a better hat, though.”

I rooted through the box a little more and came up with a candy bar. “Tony,” I said, “why do you know this?”

He didn’t even look embarrassed as he tucked 
Dead Mennonite Walking 
into his backpack. “I read 
Mennonite Man 
when it came out. It won a bunch of awards, you know.”

“I did not know.” I hadn’t realized zombie literature existed, much less won awards, and I had always pegged Tony as the kind of guy who’d polish an antique rifle before picking up a book, much less a zombie book. 

This required further investigation. “So,” I said, “do you read a lot about the undead?”

He suddenly seemed to find our surroundings fascinating. “Not really.”

Dax nudged me and cleared his throat. “Did you have a zombie escape plan, Tony?”

Tony scoffed and strode off toward a discarded group of suitcases. “If I’d had a proper zombie escape plan, I wouldn’t be traipsing all over the Midlands Cluster with you losers.”

“Did you have an 
improper 
zombie escape plan?” I asked.

“I don’t know if it’s worth picking our way through this.” Tony surveyed the debris field, doing his very best to evade the question.

Dax sent me a genuinely delighted smile. “He totally had a plan.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I asked.

Tony continued to ignore our side discussion. “Check some of those boxes, will you? Maybe there’s food in them.”

I waded a little deeper into the debris field and came up with a pair of stilettos. I stuck a finger underneath the ankle strap and lifted one of them up, brushing some of the ash from its red surface. “Damn. These were some chick’s pride and joy.”

Dax barely looked up from his book juggling. “Who brings 
that 
shoe with them during the freaking apocalypse?”

I considered the shoe. “Actually, I bet you could brain someone pretty easily with this. Look at that heel.”

Dax looked at the heel, then at me. “You're very interesting, Vibeke.”

I set the shoe down next to its mate and lifted up a molding chunk of cardboard. Several photo albums rested underneath it, relatively protected from the elements. I should’ve just dropped the damn thing, but instead I reached out, pulling open one of the volumes. Two adults, three kids, and a dog smiled out from one of the photos.

The faces didn’t look familiar, though that didn’t mean anything. Thousands of people roamed the camp, and I could hardly expect to have met all of them. Just because I hadn’t seen them didn’t mean they weren’t there. 

I let the cardboard fall back into place, half-wondering if it had been left there as a shield. Maybe someone in that family thought they’d be back for their printed memories.

It probably wasn’t the same guy who owned the zombie books.

“Any food?” Tony called.

“No…just 
stuff
.” It’s almost funny, how many of our belongings are utterly useless. Yeah, pictures are nice to look at, but you can’t fight off a ghoul with a picture…although I guess you could bludgeon one with an album. That might have the desired effect.

The sudden whine in the air sounded almost like the dog, but it was drifting toward us from down the street. I lowered the jar of birdseed I’d picked up and stared into the haze, aware that the asphalt was vibrating slightly under my boots. It didn’t feel like another tremor.

The whine increased, growing into a mechanical screech.  

“Oh, 
shit
.” Tony did not sound happy. “This is a pretty good place for a trap, isn’t?”

“The dead are setting 
traps
?” Dax asked, still holding 
Cab Ride of the Dead.

I backed away, nearly tripping over the damned stilettos. “No, Dax. Not the fucking 
dead
.”

SIX

Tony bolted for the sidewalk and nearly slipped in the ash. “Gray house on the left.”

“They’re all gray!”

“That
 
one!” He swung out a hand long enough to gesture vaguely at a house with a trailer overturned in the driveway. We scrambled for the house in a decidedly disorganized fashion, Evie racing after us.

The whine became a steady hum. They must have been coming from a far-off place if it took them so long to get here—sound carries a lot further when there’s no background noise to dilute it.

“Dude!” Dax pointed at the ground. “If they use their heads at all, they’ll see our tracks.”

He dashed back to the piece of cardboard that had concealed the photo albums. “Help him with the gate. I’ll smush up our trail.”

You
’
ll what?
 I darted ahead of Tony to the wooden gate that ran from the garage wall to the unit next door. I stood on my toes and reached over the fence, fumbling around with the latch. I also felt something else: something big and square. My heart sank. “I think there’s a lock…”

Click
. Something gave way, and the padlock slipped off the latch.

Holy shit, I never got this lucky. I opened the latch and pushed the gate open, swinging into what had probably once been a side yard strewn with tanbark. We had about eight feet of clearance between the side of the house and the fence, and everything 
looked 
clear, at least for the moment. Tony and Evie hustled through the gate.

I looked back toward Dax, then had to stop and blink. “What’s he doing?”

Tony joined me at the gate, pulling off his gloves. “Looks like an interpretation of 
Lord of the Dance
.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Boy Scout! Quit stomping the yard and get over here!”

Dax swiped the cardboard against the ground several additional times, then dragged it behind himself, leaping from side to side. Tony and I stood there staring at him as he backed his way to the gate. “You picked a hell of a time to brush up on your dance moves,” Tony said.

Dax shut the gate behind him, pride evident in his eyes.

“Nice job,” I said, although I wasn’t quite sure what I was praising.

Tony nodded in agreement. “So what happens if they realize your little swishy trail leads to the house?”

Dax’s smile faded slightly as he considered that.

The motors abruptly cut out. Tony signaled us to silence and peered through the tiny gaps between the slats. A few seconds later, I copied him, getting a halfway decent look at our visitors.

Six figures strolled through the debris field. Only one of them had a bike with him—a slender vehicle painted black and silver. I could just make out the others at the other bikes beyond it before the slats cut off my field of vision. “What kind of bike is that?” I whispered to Tony.

“Can’t tell. Looks fancy, though.”

One of the bikers knocked aside several items, including the box of zombie books. “Looks like they bugged out,” he said.

“Shit! I told you we should have waited closer.”

A third man looked around, and for a second I thought he’d spotted us. But his head continued to turn, inspecting each house along the block. “They could be hiding. We should search the place.”

“You really wanna go through all these houses? They could spring anything on us if they’re inside.” The second man crouched in front of the zombie books and started shuffling through them. I couldn’t tell whether he was smiling or not, but they seemed to be keeping his interest. “Did they have a bike?”